


Staying Alive

by InsaneTrollLogic



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:21:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1348900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneTrollLogic/pseuds/InsaneTrollLogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts in a swimming pool. (Or maybe that's how it ends.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staying Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ 2/19/2012

It starts in a swimming pool  
  
Or maybe that's how it ends.   
  


***

  
  
There's not a lot that can happen with a bomb in an enclosed space. Depending on the amount of semtex, (John would know the precise weight Sherlock can only guess based on the size of the parka and the previous explosion in old lady's flat) his prospects for survival range from low to dismal. John's are only slightly better, nestled into a corner, protected from part of the blast. But if he knows his friend, John will be moving before he pulls the trigger in a valiant attempt to get them both into the pool.  
  
It won't work. No matter how many times he runs the maths (air expanding out from point of impact) they won't make it in time to escape that initial blast.   
  
He looks sideways, a question.   
  
John's not an idiot. There's only one way this can end.  
  
He raises the gun.  
  


***

  
  
Sherlock wakes up to the heat from the phantom flames licking his skin. There's a song playing through his head, that infernal racket from Moriarty's phone,  _Staying alive, staying alive._  
  
It is suddenly very hard to breathe.   
  
John, he needs to see John.   
  
The room upstairs is streaked in shadows. John should really invest in some darker curtains but he likes to let in natural (misses the Afghan sun) light when he can. He stands in the doorway, watching, listening. He's learned his lesson about interrupting his flatmate's sleep. John sleeps like the dead, but he wake all at once, a process that seems to involve nothing but elbows.  
  
He doesn't need to touch. He can see John and that is more than enough.  
  
By his side, his phone buzzes. He glances down. Mycroft. Tiresome.  _This never should have happened. –MH_. He deletes it.   
  


***

  
  
Irene Alder could not have been more perfect if he planned her himself. Sherlock's fascinated. John is annoyed. Moriarty lurks, just off the board. When he walks out of the street, there is a bit of graffiti on the wall that catches his eye,  _Figured it out yet, Sherlock?_  
  
It's then that he realizes something has gone horribly wrong. He's more than a bit frustrated it has taken him this long to notice.  
  


***

  
  
He stops eating a day before Baskerville. It's no use anyway. Everything he tries turns to ash in his mouth. He can't even smell the smoke from the cigarettes. John takes his hunger strike in stride though Sherlock knows from experience, he'll be monitoring for symptoms of low blood sugar and malnutrition. He'll step in when the signs begin to show, strapping him into an IV if necessary.  
  
The hound isn't the only thing he sees under the influence of drugs. He makes the mistake of dozing off in his chair and he dreams he's caught in a spider web of tubing, some of them holding blood, others a clear (saline? Antibiotics?) fluid. He can't move, feels like he can't breathe, but everything aches and it's so exquisitely real that he believes.  
  
In Baskerville he doses John. Repeat the experiment. Can only hope results are replicable.   
  
John hears only the hound. Sherlock dissects this answer even as John is quietly furious with him. He knows his hypothesis, but he can't afford to be wrong so he won't explain. Not to John. John who is,  _brilliant, fantastic, a conductor of light_. (Essential).   
  
He hopes he is wrong.  
  


***

  
  
Fourteen days without food. He examines his features. There should be outward signs by now. Thinning cheeks, painful stomach contractions, changes to his complexion. He's not felt faint. His mind is still working. He scratches the crook of his elbow and wonders how long he might be able to stay awake.  
  


***

  
  
"Arch nemeses, monstrous hounds and Bluebell the glowing rabbit?" John's laughing as he types up this blog entry. Perhaps Sherlock has already been forgiven. "Sometimes it feels like we're living in a fairy tale. Next case I supposed we should suspect your evil stepmother and a pumpkin turned into a carriage."  
  
"Why would we ever expect that?"  
  
John grabs his cup of tea in both hands and turns to face his friend, drinking in the warmth. The weather shows no signs of ever warming. "You've deleted Cinderella then?"  
  
"Obviously."   
  
"Does seem a bit fantastic though. Something out of a storybook. If we don't start taking some more normal cases, my readers are going to think we've made the whole thing up."  
  
"Dull." Sherlock steeples his fingers under his chin and closes his eye. (He sees John Watson in the midst of an inferno. The flames should consume him, but not even in his imagination can Sherlock contemplate John coming into harm.) "You're at least sticking to the facts this time?"  
  
"Tobacco ash," John corrects mildly.  
  
"Fairy tales." Sherlock counters, not really listening anymore.  
  


***

  
  
_Wake Sherlock_ , says the glass pane that houses the crown jewels before Moriarty smashes it. Three of them in an enclosed space. One bullet. A semtex vest. And now this.   
  
 _Staying alive_.   
  
John doesn't get it yet, and John's the only thing that matters. He's not sure he wants John to see, so he plays along.  
  
He shouldn't be the star witness at Moriarty's trial. There's no reason for it. There should be more than enough evidence without him. They have video. They have the phone. He's unnecessary. Superfluous.   
  
Jim Moriarty seeks his gaze and mimes a child going to sleep.  
  


***

  
  
"You look sad when you think he can't see you." Molly Hooper says. "Are you okay?"  
  
"No." Sherlock closes his eyes. "And I don't think he's okay either."  
  


***

  
  
He can't feel the wind on his cheeks. Moriarty has that smirk on his face. "Figured it out then, Sherlock? I mean you should have figured it out a long time ago. I've known how it happens for months." ( _Three men, a swimming pool, a bomb_ )  
  
"Of course. Trivial."  
  
"The why haven't we jumped yet? It's just like fairy tales. We'll fly off into the sunset. Have us a proper happy ending. What's stopping you?"  
  
"John..." Sherlock says. He has faith in his brain, in his ability to replicate details, the invent cases, but to replicate  _John_. That's something he doesn't think he can do.  
  
"John? Oh that's good. You haven't ended this because of your little pet. What happens to John if you're wrong?" Moriarty drums his fingers on his knee. "John dies if you're wrong, Sherlock. You might die too."  
  
Irrelevant. From their positions in the pool, John had a statistically better chance of survival. Sherlock's chances are null if John doesn't make it. The phantom weight of John's borrowed gun sits in his hands. He can feel his fingers curling around the trigger. He's never observed a bombing first hand before, but he abhors the results, chaotic, unimaginative,  _dull_. The headiness that comes with carbon monoxide (incomplete combustion; even nature has its lazy days), makes him feel slow.  
  
The explosion itself though, chemistry in action. He has to think he would remember that. (Can he remember that? Catalyzed reaction with free radical propagation. Light first then sound, then heat. John screaming his name, his own through raw as well, there is no way to be dignified in the midst of an inferno.)  
  
The sun's shining, but Sherlock can't feel the warmth. There's been at least a year of winter.  
  
When he blinks, Moriarty is still in front of him. "So this is our problem, our final problem. Do you think we're doing it, Sherlock. Do you think we're staying alive? Do you think we're here, on this rooftop, or do you think we're in the pool. I was always rather fond of the smell of burning flesh. Is this our afterlife, yours and mine?"  
  
"Not you," Sherlock says. "Can't be you. Because you're me. Not a figment, just a facet."   
  
"Oh. That's interesting!" Moriarty's face twists into surprise ( _cherish it_ ) and he leans in closer. "Then I've just got one more question for you, Sherlock Holmes: are you sure?"  
  
Jim Moriarty smirks and eats his own gun.  
  


***

  
  
There is blood on his hands. He can feel it. Slick and warm. His hands are shaking and he's dizzy and  _he's not sure_.  
  
( _In an abandoned swimming pool, three men stand around a bomb. Sherlock looks to John. John nods._  
  
Sherlock pulls the trigger.)  
  
He rings John.  
  


***

  
  
"It wasn't real," Sherlock says. "I made it all up. No one can be that clever."  
  
"You can," John says.  
  
How can he not be here? How can he not understand? Sherlock hasn't eaten anything in a month. Hasn't seen any ill effects except for the world trying to tear him down. Is it even possible that John can be here too?  
  
"You look but you don't observe," Sherlock tells him. "You said it yourself. We're living in a fairy tale."  
  
John will figure it out. John will put the pieces together. There is a sniper somewhere, one of Moriarty's snipers who will probably solve this final problem for him. But there's that nagging voice that whispers,  _what if you're wrong?_  
  
If he's wrong and he doesn't jump, he will never see John again. If he's right—if he's right there's a chance. "Listen to me very carefully. This is not a sham, not a hoax. I designed those crimes as sure as I solved them. There's only one solution. We've been dreaming for a long time, John. If you'll still have me, I'll see you when we wake up."  
  
The pavement feels like a splash.  
  


***

  
  
(In an empty hospital room, there are two men strapped into traction. The heart monitors beat together, out of rhythm but not out of synch.)


End file.
